André Kertész was born in Hungary in 1894. Settled in Paris in 1925, he became one of the main players of photographic avant-garde while standing aside from artistic mouvements. André Kertész defines himself as the everlasting “amateur” he was in his beginnings in Hungary –while acting like a great technician–, he only links his photographic activity to his personal and internal life and affirms the primacy of feelings and affections in a quest he compares to an visual diary: “I never only made photographs. I express myself with photography.”

He shares with constructivists like Moholy-Nagy and Lajos Kassák a talent for geometrical compositions and balanced positionings in space. He always reworks the negative, in a small or drastic way; it was common during the 20th century to remove the edges of the negative or to sacrifice a part more or less important, to enhance the construction of the image. With his brother Jenö, he makes numerous shootings and printings. Both of them are passionnate about photography; they experiment and analyse their mistakes and their successes. Since 1913, his brother is at the same time the partner of his experiments and the subject of them.

“As soon as I find a subject which interests me, I leave it to the lens to record it truthfully. Look at the reporters and at the amateur photographer! They both have only one goal; to record a memory or a document. And that is pure photography.”

Recently, his works have been exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, 2008), The International Center of Photography (New York, 2010), Jeu de Paume (Paris, 2011). His photographs are preserved in institutions such as the MoMA (New York), SFMOMA (San Francisco), National Gallery of Art (Washington), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).